(16-01-2012 06:23 PM)AntiqueTelephoneNut Wrote: I was raised and forced into Catholic dogma and went to Catholic school until 4th grade. By that time I pleaded with my parents to put me in public school. So in 5th grade I was finally in public school. What a relief!

I wonder if there is something about that time 4-5th grade in a religious school that makes for more non-Catholics. I remember about 5 of us from my school that moved away from the Church at that time, and in a class of 20, that is a decent percentage.

Hello my name is Martin, I am 21 years old and from germany.
Sooo what am I doing here?
My parents raised me catholic.
I always accepted that what my parents told me("there is a god"), but I started doubting that all stories in the bible are true.
Thanks to my grandma I know everything about the bible, but when I started asking question to thinks that didnt appear logical tome they just said, don't think but believe. lol
Anyway as many people in germany I was still christian but just not religious.
At the age of 18 I met a girl and we fell in love.
Anyway she believed in god, and actually that's the time when I started thinking and searching for god.
Btw she wasn't christian as you all may think but muslim
So I think the problem is quite clear
After hours, weeks, months of researches I came to the conclusion that there is no god.
Impossible. He doesn't exist he is just not there.
And when I realized that, it was the first time in my life I really felt free.
I love that feeling because no matter what everyone believes I know that I know better.

I am a 28 year old Atheist living in the Bible Pudge ( you know, that little roll hanging over the belt) of Southern Illinois.

I was originally raised as a Catholic, in 5th grade I moved on to Wicca. Eventually becoming more "orthodox," I moved towards BTW, and eventually to the O.T.O. over time It became clear that there was nothing supernatural going on, and had been taught that "it does not matter if any of this crap exists, as long as one believes it does, it will have an effect." from there it was not that far of a stretch to just drop all faith entirely.

I know that it is most likely not the most common path to atheism story, but honestly I have not exactly been anywhere close to what was considered mainstream in the religious aspect of American society for most of my life, and making the eventual move to Atheism did not do much to change the challenges and battles I face.

Sorry for the long into and glad to be here,
Dave.

Welcome, Dave.

Maybe you could be a bridge to the new-agey people who think that what you believe affects reality. You clearly reasoned by evidence that this was not so. Let's help those deluded people come into the light.

Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.

Im a 26 year old atheist. I was raised Catholic but by age 12 I was questioning why I was being forced to commit to a church when it wasn't what I wanted to do. In fairness to my parents they had never met someone who didn't believe in god before so they just made me go to my confirmation ceremony so that I would fit in.

I have an undergraduate degree in Science and it was during my college years that I really started to understand that there is no god. Evolution wasn't expalined very well when I was in school but we studied in properly in college and things started to make sense.

Im now studying medicine which I love. I am proud of my atheism but I try to not ram it down anyone's throat!

Funny thing happened to me today, I met my first creationist! Obviously I knew they existed, mainly from reading Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins but I live in Ireland and most people accept evolution.

And I was so disappointed because I have read so much that I thought I would be able to argue the evolution side of the debate but I froze, I was so shocked that she could really believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old!!

“The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.”
― Christopher Hitchens

(16-01-2012 06:23 PM)AntiqueTelephoneNut Wrote: I was raised and forced into Catholic dogma and went to Catholic school until 4th grade. By that time I pleaded with my parents to put me in public school. So in 5th grade I was finally in public school. What a relief!

I wonder if there is something about that time 4-5th grade in a religious school that makes for more non-Catholics. I remember about 5 of us from my school that moved away from the Church at that time, and in a class of 20, that is a decent percentage.

Yes, Maybe the brain development is advanced enough to filter all BS by the time we are 10-11 years old. Some do, some don't? However, as a kid my belief in Santa stopped around 4 or 5 YO. Then again, Santa is so obvious and religion takes a bit more thought to process. Not quite sure, just a guess.

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

Hi. I am Teresa. I am 30 years old and from Pennsylvania. I grew up catholic I am married to another fellow atheist. He grew up catholic as well. We kind of discovered after marrying that we just didn't believe anymore. We weren't married in a church which well kind of pissed my parents off. My mother tried to convince us to have a catholic wedding so we would be seen as a married couple in the eyes of the church. Umm no. I didn't want to do the classes with a priest who was never married to give us advice on marriage. Like that made sense. We had our son before we were married. I didn't want to start going to church, get him baptized and just play lip service to something I didn't want to do anymore. It started out as we don't want to be catholic anymore, so let's find a new religion. Well we couldn't find anything we liked. We thought about going to an Unitarian church but it just wasn't our thing. We decided we didn't believe in organized religion that we didn't need to go to believe. Well ha! It started out we were agnostic. I don't know when we decided it that, maybe 4 years ago? Then just this past year we have started saying we were atheists.
My mother's side was very religious. I even have an aunt who is a nun. My mom is one of 9 siblings. Luckily I didn't have to go to catholic school. But I went to CCD every Sunday. And I hated it! I hated every part of it. Mostly having to get up earlier to go to it since it was before church. Just how I want to spend my weekend, waking up early and going to a classroom before having to sit through church.
Anyway I am an atheist now and love listening to the thinking atheist podcasts.

Hi! I'm a a 21 year old Norwegian guy living in Oslo and I'm a university student studying game design. I just found the podcast on Itunes which then took me here. I have been listening non-stop for a few hours now.

Damn parents made me delete my other account.calmyourtitsbro/insidemyownmind/xLegendofLink096x here.
For you all who do not know me, I shall introduce myself:

I live in the body of a very open-minded, petite teenage girl.
Most of the time, I let out my pain in a poetic format rather than a horribly-thought-bitch-fit.
I love makeup and I live around my music and skinny jeans.The Sounds, Dia Frampton, Two Door Cinema Club, and Christina Grimmie are the people who consume my 32gb Zune HD.
I love it when people PM me randomly, no matter what they have to say.
You could say "Hello noob, how are you today?" or you could say "You immature cunt looking bitch, learn to stick to one topic!" and I would be just as happy, just to see that I recieved a message.
But, yeah.. That's me in a nutshell.

(23-01-2012 10:00 AM)xLegendofLink096x Wrote: Damn parents made me delete my other account.calmyourtitsbro/insidemyownmind/xLegendofLink096x here.
For you all who do not know me, I shall introduce myself:

I live in the body of a very open-minded, petite teenage girl.
Most of the time, I let out my pain in a poetic format rather than a horribly-thought-bitch-fit.
I love makeup and I live around my music and skinny jeans.The Sounds, Dia Frampton, Two Door Cinema Club, and Christina Grimmie are the people who consume my 32gb Zune HD.
I love it when people PM me randomly, no matter what they have to say.
You could say "Hello noob, how are you today?" or you could say "You immature cunt looking bitch, learn to stick to one topic!" and I would be just as happy, just to see that I recieved a message.
But, yeah.. That's me in a nutshell.

Hi! My name is Casees I am 23 and have been an atheist since I was about 15...I would really like to meet new, like minded individuals because I align myself as an atheist but have hardly any atheist friends I can talk to! I look forward to posting on this forum and meeting new people!!